


Empire Strikes Back

by Canon_Is_Relative, stardust_made



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epistolary, Getting Together, Idiot boys on love, International Fanworks Day 2016, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Slash, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 20:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6023818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Demon is dead, and Sam is not all right. Neither is Dean.</p><p>(AU from the end of “All Hell Breaks Loose part 1”: Dean arrives in Cold Oak a minute earlier and kills Jake. Sam doesn’t die, Dean doesn’t sell his soul, and nobody goes to hell. Well. Not literally.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empire Strikes Back

**Author's Note:**

> For International Fanworks Day we did a reboot on something we wrote together two years ago. It's a stand alone. We hope you enjoy!

**_Dean_ **

 

Bullshit.

There were many things upon God’s green earth that Dean didn’t know or couldn’t do much about but there were some things he was good at, some he was even awesome at. There were things he could suss out from a thousand miles, and bullshit was one of them. There’d been enough of it coming his way to train him for a lifetime. He wasn’t even thirty and he was a pro.

Sam was selling him bullshit.

Five years earlier was the first episode. It consisted of just the one conversation where Sam had flat out told Dean he wasn’t going to stay in the life forever, sounding quite belligerent. Then, after a short pause, had added, “You could come, too.” His tone was drastically different; Dean could hear it as if it were yesterday. He could still see Sam’s face in his mind’s eye, too: the darting eyes, the flaring nostrils, the pink spots on Sam's cheeks. It was one of his most vivid memories from those days. The other one was the expression on Sam’s face when he stormed out the house on that fucked up September night, not long after. His hair was in his eyes and his eyes were on fire. Some people actually thought Sammy was a fluffy bunny. For real. Many thought the youngest Winchester was still the baby; a pushover even. It just went to show how appearances did deceive, and not only when it came to supernatural scum. Sam was steel that no fire could melt. Sam was fire himself, the blue flame, burning quietly and persistently long after roaring bonfires had dwindled and died. When he did erupt, he left no green grass behind, just a burned up field. Ask Dean, go on. Ask him.

Dean hadn’t even used words to convey what he thought of Sam’s suggestion back then. He had none, for one thing. He hadn’t known what he thought about it, only that there wasn’t a choice for him to make. If the shaking of Dean’s head hadn’t been enough, then whatever Sam had seen in his eyes seemed to cut off any further attempts to have them take off together to the Promised Land.

A month later Sam was gone and Dean was left to pick up the pieces.

This time around, two years after Dean had claimed Sam back from Palo Alto and a month to the day after they killed the yellow-eyed son of a bitch that took away both their parents, Sam had premiered the next episode for Dean’s special viewing pleasure. If the one right before Stanford was A New Hope, then this thing here was the fucking Empire Striking Back: cunning, formidable, coming at Dean when he was least expecting it. He was bogged down by some very private issues of his own not to mention that, recently, he’d been feeling like he was in Baby’s driving seat but someone had removed the steering wheel. His hands seemed to have swapped places, coffee tasted like shit everywhere and that rod-like thing in his neck was godawful. He just didn't know what the hell was happening to him so he was going through the motions, doing everything he'd always done and waiting for the day when he'd wake up and find himself right again. Adjusted, whatever.

Next thing he knew, freaking Sam was bombarding him with questions straight out of some cheap self-help book: _Where do you enjoy spending time? Do you prefer beaches or forests and lakes?_ They fought. Then followed silent, moping looks, like Dean was considering drowning puppies in his leisure time and couldn’t see the error of his ways. Worse, actually—like Dean was Sam’s drowning puppy. Which was just all kinds of wrong, because Dean Winchester was no one’s bitch.

The thing with Sam was, he actually did what he said he would do. Sam leaving was going to happen, but this time around there wasn’t going to be John Winchester periodically letting Dean know that Sam was all right. How Dad found ways to check on Sammy back then Dean had never asked. Premature aging was in the cards for Dean if he had to go through another bout of separation from his brother, only this time not even having a clue how Sam was, where he was. They had to stay on speaking terms. The United States of America was a pretty big place. Only on TV could people miraculously just show up on someone’s doorstep.

Not that anyone would have bought him a beer to congratulate him, but Dean was quite the diplomat. He would have opened his own casino in Vegas if he got a dollar each time he had sensed tension between Dad and Sam. He was good at figuring out when to wait it out quietly and when to interfere. He was also good at knowing the best way to cut it: with a joke, with talk about a hunt, with a seemingly casual remark about something either Dad or Sam were really interested in at that moment; even with a straightforward, “All right, stop it.” He was versatile in his tactics. He once spilled boiling water on himself. The pain was pulsing faster and faster, all consuming, until he was teetering on the edge between agony and some absurd relief. But Dad and Sam were two intense faces swimming closer and farther and they sure no longer had their eyes on each other.

Point was, Dean knew how to deal. He fought a little with Sam as a matter of principle. _Do you really see us working nine to five while someone one town over gets possessed? All right then, since you have all the answers, mind telling me how exactly are you going to explain to your boss why you came back from your short break looking like a zombie that won second prize at a Halloween costume party?_ But often, Dean just stared ahead through the Impala’s window, specs and dust integrating themselves into any scenery, somehow transforming it into the same one: faded in color, muted in light, evoking a sense of futility that rendered him effortlessly numb.

***

If sniffing out bullshit was Dean’s specialty, Sam’s was puffing up clouds of emotion. Depending on the size, Dean could sometimes stay out of it. He couldn’t avoid this one, though, so it took a couple of weeks for it to start evaporating. When Dean was able to see straight again, he realized he couldn’t tell if Sammy was bullshitting him or himself. Maybe his little brother was pushing just to trick Dean into kicking against him, hauling ass and leaving Sam alone to do as he pleased with his own life. A guilt-free do-over for Sam; that freaking coveted yellow brick road to normal life Sam had been after from the moment he had really stopped thinking like a child. Bullshitting Dean, so Dean could just storm out of Sam’s life. Simmer aside for a while then get back in touch, because there really was no scenario this time around where Dean didn’t speak to Sammy. Not after what they’d been through. Not after losing Dad. It was all they got, each other.

All Dean got was Sam.

After a brief lull of quiet, Sam started on again about turning a new page, having a different life, _blah blah blah_. They were cooped up at Bobby’s. Bobby had gone to help Rufus bury a body, but he was waiting on delivery of an old chest, the possessions of the now-deceased Old Hand George, a legendary hunter Dean had never had the honor of meeting. Dean couldn’t say who said what, or did what but suddenly he got another case of the walls closing in on him and he took off.

He got drunk and went hunting by himself. Usually, it was the other way around, but if Dean couldn’t deal, even hammered, with a ferret ghost terrorizing a pet store, he might as well sell his gear on eBay-dot-hunter-dot-com and start on the white picket fence tomorrow.

So he got drunk _then_ did the job, all in a day’s work. More like ninety minutes sharp, after which the frustration with his brother’s obsessive need to never leave well enough alone hit a new high and Dean kicked some stuff around his motel room. He was lying face down on his motel bed, the bedspread starched and lemon-scented against his skin, when he had his epiphany.

 _We speak like actors,_ he thought. _Like someone sends us on hunts all across the land, sticking to the crappier places, though, no nice weather for the Winchesters, no sir, no sand between our toes. Someone sends us away, and gives us lines, and it looks like we’re talking about different things and doing different stuff, but we’re not. All I ever ask you, Sammy, is if you’re going to leave me; all you ever tell me is that you are. The conditions don’t matter, they’re small print._

Sometimes, these were their honest to God lines. Post-ferret, Dean remembered that conversation in Chicago they had a year ago. Back when they all nearly died, Dad, Dean and Sammy, facing the Deavas. There was some small relief in remembering it. Proof that Dean wasn’t nuts, he wasn’t just imagining things.

_“God, could you imagine if we actually found that damn thing? That demon?”_

_“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right?”_

_“I know. I’m just saying, what if we did? What if this whole thing was over tonight? Man, I’d sleep for a month. Go back to school—be a person again.”_

_“You want go back to school?”_

_“Yeah, once we’re done hunting the thing.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“Why? Is there something wrong with that?”_

_“No. No, it’s great. Good for you.”_

_“I mean, what are you going to do when it’s all over?”_

_“It’s never going to be over. There’s going to be others. There’s always going to be something to hunt.”_

_“But there’s got to be something that you want for yourself—“_

All Dean wanted was his brother. There were eight notes in the music scale and Dean and Sam kept having the same conversation, just rearranging the notes so they sounded like a new tune.

His walls had been so high back then in Chicago. Sturdy and permanent to the point where Dean couldn’t even tell he had them, not until they started creaking and cracking on the way down. It had felt like all the bones in his body were melting, and not in a good way.

He’d told Sam the truth. In his drunken post-ferret haze Dean’s throat pinched in painful helplessness at the memory because he simply did not know how much clearer he could be.

_“But there’s got to be something that you want for yourself—”_

_“Yeah, I don’t want you to leave the second this thing’s over, Sam.”_

Sam would have said it was different this time. Sam, in fact, did say it, very emphatically. But Dean didn’t believe it. Nothing was ever going to be different for them.

Or between them, because Dean wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but he wasn’t stupid. Deep down he knew it was the only difference that mattered to him and the one real thing that stood between Sam’s plea and Dean’s affirmative. Somewhere between Sam stitching him or bitching at him (or both at the same time) and Sam’s teeth glinting at him like two lines of fucking jewels, somewhere between Sam’s knees knocking against the Impala’s dashboard and Sam’s soft voice soothing men, women, children and pets, between Sam being back by his side, his brother, the single thing that mattered to Dean most in the world, and Sam stretching in his worn, bland layers of clothing until there was a hint of nicely defined chest muscles under them… Somewhere between one moment and the next things had coalesced into a whole new picture for Dean.

It bent him out of shape to say the least. There was no name to it at first, just the awareness that Sam had grown, had _changed_. It had flared into existence like a matchstick’s hissing flame the moment Dean sneaked into Sam’s place in Palo Alto and saw his brother for the first time in three years. There was no goddamn name to it for a long time after, just that intense swirl around his belly button, but from the inside, whenever Sam stood too close and smelled of Sam too headily, whenever Dean watched him walk away to the gas station store, feet dragging like they did Sam’s way, hips canting like they did Sam’s way… Or when Sammy’s eyes were slightly puffed up after sleeping for a full eight hours and that made them even more tilted, then they were unfocused, traveling through some dimension Dean couldn’t see to some place he couldn’t reach until he wanted to slam his hand on the table, make mugs hop up startled in their spots, and yell at Sam, “Why are you that way? How did you get so deep under my skin? Why can’t I find fucking peace with or without you anymore?”

Man, the morning they stopped at a diner in Biwabik, Minnesota, it had all been too much. Sam with his hazy eyes, the huge clouds that looked like palms with stumps instead of fingers. The scraped skin on the insides of Dean's forearms. The thing that finally got its name. Yeah. That morning got Dean good.

It might have been a fresh discovery but once there, it was impossible to uproot or get used to. It was impossible to unwant. So even if Sam was actually bullshitting himself and not Dean, believing in this nirvana of his where the two of them shacked it up together in Nowhere in Particular, the state of Somewhere in Between, Dean couldn’t board that train. If they kept moving he had some chance of taming the beast: change the scenery, keep himself distracted. Maybe Sam did believe in happy endings where together they just stopped, just…stopped. But to Dean stopping meant being permanently trapped in the morning of that diner in Biwabik.

Stopping could mean something worse actually. For one thing, it could mean Dean losing his mind because he had zero understanding of the actual concept of stopping. It could also mean Sam settling down proper. From there it was more predictable than a hookup in a bar. Dean would rather not be there for the day Sam moved out to live with his girlfriend. Who, naturally, would be super hot and smart and accomplished. If he was going to be brutally honest with himself, Dean didn’t deal well with conflict unless it involved something out of the arsenal in Baby’s trunk. Inner conflicts, no thanks. He’d tasted that bitch back when Sam flew the family nest and Dad crapped all over it, demeanor even less approachable than normal. Thank fuck they were hunting for three people for the weeks immediately following Sam’s departure. But the rest was crap of the highest order, it was some of the worst time in Dean’s life, and at least half of it was thanks to swinging wildly between being angry at Sam and missing him; blaming him and worrying about him; resenting him and being happy for him.

Dean could just picture it, how it would go this time, too. He would be happy for Sam again, he really would. Smiling until the very last moment before his head sunk below the surface and Dean drowned in his own incestuous, old-man-in-the-making solitude.

God, he did not want to be alone. That swiveling Dean felt down there, sweet and sickening, might get his guts to spill out one day, but he just could not, did not want to be without Sam so badly that he could cry. He did, all over that bedspread, until it lost its starch.

 ---

**_Sam_ **

 

The morning after they killed the Yellow Eyed Demon, Sam came downstairs to find Dean standing with Bobby at his desk, outlining a hunt. He looked a wreck under a week of old stubble and new scars, but his eyes were shining, determined. "Monsters need killing, Sammy," he said, and went to load the car.

The Demon was gone, and with him had gone the visions and the nightmares and the headaches. But the feeling of something alien under Sam's skin only intensified for how out of place it was now. It was supposed to be over. They were supposed to be done. Their mom avenged, their dad vindicated. The Winchesters were _done_. But Sam was still not quite...right.

Neither was Dean, though. As they tore through their first few hunts in a world still full of monsters but now devoid of yellow eyes, Dean's grin seemed manic and his attitude sang louder to the tune of _who-cares_ than _devil-may-care_. It wasn't to say he had suddenly changed. It was actually the opposite and somehow even worse, Sam thought, watching Dean beat on the steering wheel in time to his music: it was as though he was looking at a caricature of his brother and a damn good one at that; one who got all the lines right, leered and smirked and laughed and waggled his eyebrows in all the right places.

It was the rote-ness to it that was all wrong. There was no momentum behind it, behind them, nothing driving them down the old road they kept hurtling along. Before, when they'd argue, there was passion behind it; a reason. Sam could always admit that, recognize it, even when he thought that Dean was dead wrong, or being just plain stubborn and stupid, he could always recognize and halfway understand the underlying motivation for what his jackass big brother was saying and doing. Now...Dean still argued with him, but in a way that never failed to kill Sam's enthusiasm for pursuing whatever-it-was that he did or said or wanted that Dean took objection to. The substance had gone out of things, and Sam felt like a ghost. Or an imposter. The ghost of an imposter, bound to his brother and this life and unable to muster enough power to feel more than simple resentment and claustrophobia.

Weeks went by, a month, marked in monster guts and bullet casings. They got halfway to Arizona one night. ‘Halfway' as defined by some kind of arbitrary Dean-sense; he'd said to Sam they'd stop for the night when they were halfway there, and Sam spent the rest of the starry drive staring out the window and trying to remember where they'd come from, what halfway there might feel like, what halfway there might mean, and thinking about Dad. Sitting on the motel bed later, too weary to take off his boots, Sam watched Dean clatter around the room, pulling off his shirt and twisting around in front of the mirror to inspect the angry red welts that striped him from neck to navel and finally looked to be on the point of healing up. Dean had started bitching about them around noon, which probably meant they weren't bothering him as much anymore.

Sam watched Dean, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth like he'd just crammed in a spoonful of rancid peanut butter, and wished he had the guts to say to his brother, _Dad gave his life for you, Dean, that means he wants more for you, he wants to you live!_ But no way was Sam fool enough to think that a reminder that their dad was, for all they knew, burning in Hell, would convince Dean that he should drop out of the game to go live some cushy normal life with his needy, clinging brother.

They were all the way to Arizona, a hundred degrees easy in the shade, when Sam stopped Dean with a question he'd never asked before: Where do you like to spend time? When Dean acted like Sam was speaking Klingon, Sam pushed. If Dean was going to stop moving for a little while, where would he want to be? Down here in the southwest, assuming a good A/C unit? Midwest, all those forests and lakes? Coast? Country or city? Where did Dean _like_ to be?

And Sam's well aware that he's pretty stupid when it comes to his brother sometimes, but even he should have seen the answer to that one a mile away: In the car, on the road, windows down, blah blah blah. And it was somewhere around the point that Dean's words started sounding like _blah blah blah_ to Sam that the conversation turned into their first real fight since they'd killed Yellow Eyes and it was all Sam could do to keep his head in the game enough to remember the careful phrasing he'd spent the second half-leg of their Arizona drive turning over and perfecting in his mind.

"I want something different out of life." Careful, even as his cold-simmering rage flared up in Dean's direction, not to say _more_ or _better_ , just _different_. Because he'd been thinking about it for what felt like a thousand miles, now, coming to realize and then accept that if he didn't persuade Dean to leave with him, it was going to be a repeat of Stanford. An unbearable thought, that history would repeat itself and send them through the devastating wringer of another knock-down drag-out that left them both feeling wronged, left Dean thinking that Sam could have and should have been stopped from leaving.

So Sam told him, through clenched teeth but without shouting, that he wanted to try out what it felt like to be settled for a while. He'd had a taste of it at Stanford but Dean was right, had always been right; everything in his life there had been built on at least half a lie. So now he wanted to try it again, having the same roof overhead every night… "And a good garage for the car." The lump in his throat eased as soon as the words were out, relief washing through him like a glass of cold water after a run. He knew of no plainer way to say, _And I want all of this with you,_ and the ball was in Dean's court now.

Dean, who was sitting stiff and cold as a headstone and finally grunting something about Sam wanting to run away to college again but this time take a security blanket with him, _Well, gee Sammy, thanks but no thanks._ Asking if Sam honestly thought Dean was worth more sitting on his ass than out killing ugly ass monsters while Sam bit his tongue because it always came down to this. How do you argue with someone who has made it their life's work to save as many people as possible while putting themselves in the most dangerous spots imaginable? Sitting there in the sun-baked car, blinded by the glare on the road and the sheen of Dean's righteous anger, Sam wondered if that was how the spouses of firefighters felt.

And then he heard himself, his word choice, and gave up reining himself in and just got fucking angry. It was so damn stupid the way Dean had him twisted all around so that he barely recognized himself. When he looked at Dean these days, the first word in his mind was no longer _brother_. It was _mine,_ and Sam didn’t know when that happened, when Dean became needed and necessary and essential, or when he started slipping away from Sam. Wondered if it had been right there in that ghost town, Sam on his knees in the mud with Dean, Jake’s lifeless body half a dozen paces away and the sound of Dean’s shotgun still reverberating through the sodden air. Dean’s hand on Sam’s neck and in his hair, coffee breath on Sam’s face. “Turning your back on the psycho with the knife, what the hell is wrong with you?” Dean was shaking Sam, Dean was shaking. “He almost – what the hell would I have—“ And Sam was pushing Dean and pulling him at the same time, whiplash making reality distort around him…

The fight, a month later, Arizona fading in their rearview, was entirely predictable. Sam railing at Dean from two feet away, hurling himself across the eternal gap that four years and a golden-haired ghost had left between them. Pleading with Dean to recognize his own worth, the worth of trying something new in life, of planning for the future and hoping for the best and taking care of himself, for once in his fucking life!

They were probably fifteen and nineteen the first time they did this, so they know all the moves by heart. It made Sam ill, seeing Dean sit there, squinting at the road, rallying just enough to sling back the expected words like it was only a set of motions to get through before the inevitable end point: Sam leaving him. Sam disappointing him. Sam deserting him. And Sam was just so angry—with himself, with Dean, Dad, Mom, the world, Bobby, the goddamn Demon—that he couldn't even bring himself to be bothered by the irony of this self-fulfilling prophecy.

They got back to Bobby's, not stopping halfway anywhere. He tried again to talk to Dean, a day or two later after Bobby had gone off somewhere with Rufus, and got a look that felt like someone had snuck up behind him while he was walking and grabbed him by the belt loops, making him stumble over his words and shutting him up good. Then Dean went on a beer run and twenty minutes later Sam’s cell rang. Dean was heading down to Nebraska, some old contact of Caleb’s had called him, lobbed him an easy hunt, _don’t wait up, Sammy_.

Sam wasted a case of bullets out back in Bobby’s shooting range that afternoon. He was glad Dean had taken off, really. They both needed some time, some fresh air without the other battering against their walls, both of them demanding and expecting the other to change their lives, bend their wills, just because they were asked. The fact that Dean was out hunting alone now after he hadn’t been out of arm’s reach since he’d grabbed on to him in the mud back at Cold Oak had Sam on edge, but he was all right. Dean was stupid, but he wasn’t suicidal; if he said it was an easy hunt, Sam was going to believe him.

Dean really was stupid, though. Sam reloaded, stepped another five paces back, and took aim. What was wrong with his brother, that he couldn’t imagine having a home, wouldn’t even listen to Sam try to explain? “Don’t give me that bullshit about the hunting life, Dean,” he was going to say, drowning himself out as he emptied another round into the target. “Not every hunter lives out of a car.”

He hung his head, hearing Dean’s retort loud and clear. “Yeah, and how’s that working out for the Harvelles, huh? Pastor Jim, Caleb, Daniel Elkins? How many hunters do we know who were killed in their own homes?” Fuck. Even in this, Dean was trying to protect him. He wondered how consciously Dean was echoing what Dad had said, all those months ago, the one honest conversation he’d managed to have with the guy in the last decade. When Dad had told him that all he could think of, when Sam left for school, was that he was alone, that he couldn’t protect him, Sam had looked into his eyes and recognized that what he saw there was, after all, love. Kind of twisted and fucked up, but still.

Twisted and fucked up love: a Winchester special. When Dean got back to Bobby’s a day later, all swagger and skittishness, Sam was twisting a key ring around his fingers, duffel at his feet. He’d pulled the old rust bucket around to the front of the house after Bobby told him where to find it and hung up after vague threats not to do anything stupid.

“I’m taking off for a bit, going to drive around,” he told Dean. “Just for a little while. I need to clear my head.” Dean said nothing. Sam shrugged, tension in his shoulders. “Look, it’s just. It's messing with me, man. We got the thing that killed Mom and Jess, but Dean...I don't...I don't feel it, not the way I want to, not…not the way I should,” he finished, more honest than he'd intended to be when finding himself faced with his brother's thin, paling lips.

He didn’t. Didn’t feel it the way he should. And the things he did feel were things he shouldn’t. Sense-memory of Dean’s hands all over him, covered in mud and his eyes wide, looking…like they did now. Big, scared, and locked on Sam. Relief and dread welled in Sam’s chest, a geyser of emotion he didn’t know what to do with and its sudden eruption, adrenaline-fueled swell of desire for something he couldn’t name.

His center of balance had shifted, his very bones reshaping while his insides stayed the same, leaving him himself-but-not, Sam-but-not, Dean’s-brother-but-not. Deprived of any sense of self without the familiar internal and external landmarks, he just needed to breathe on his own for a while.

“Sammy, just. Be careful, all right?”

Dean’s hand found his shoulder, then his collar, bunching into a fist over Sam’s heart and he shook him slightly, Sam swaying into Dean’s space, catching himself on a half-step that brought him almost chest to chest with Dean. The world blurred around its focus on Dean’s lips. Dean, looking up at him with an expression of awe, looking trapped, betrayed. Looking caught.

Sam tried to make himself swallow but his mouth felt like the desert they’d left behind in Arizona and when Dean looked away Sam only nodded, clenching his jaw and blinking rapidly, like the loss of Dean’s eyes on him was a rejection of some part of himself so deeply seated he hadn’t even been aware of it until he felt it curl into a wounded, defensive ball somewhere behind his ribs.

Sam nodded again, scraped a handful of words up from whatever pit he’d gone and fallen into, and fled.

 

\---

_Two days after Sam leaves, 9 PM, Sam texts Dean._

[Sam]  
I'm in Wisconsin.

 

[Dean]  
Why there?

 

[Sam]  
Remember that motel in Fitchburg with the Shtriga? Same family's still running it, Joanna’s letting me stay here cheap while I help out with stuff around the place.

I was planning to drive farther, wander around for awhile, but that truck didn't sound too good on the highway.

 

[Dean]  
Yeah I kinda half expected that. I could see it in Bobby's eyes, man

 

[Sam]  
I should have waited and let you look at it, you were right. I'm sorry, Dean.

 

[Dean]  
Nah, that thing would have needed work. It got you where you wanted to be

 

[Sam]  
Yeah, I guess.

 

[Dean]  
It's good you went to Fitchburg, back to that place

Say hi to that smartass kid, what was his name? Jonah?

Michael. Say hi to Michael from me

 

[Sam]  
Michael. He's grown like crazy, looks almost like an adult. Still a smartass, gave me a room with two queens.

 

[Dean, after a few minutes]  
He did?

 

[Sam]  
Yeah. He said it like it was some kind of joke, then asked if you still have that car.

 

[Dean]  
Should have asked him what's so funny

Everyone remembers Baby. She's a beauty

 

[Sam]  
But then later he took me aside and really seriously thanked me again for helping his brother, told me to thank you, too. He said he thinks about it every day, how lucky they are that we were there at the right time. His mom told me that he's changed over the last year from kind of sulky to super responsible and that, she actually said this, "he looks after his little brother like it's his job."

 

[Dean]  
Still hope for the young people of today then

 

[Sam]  
I guess so. Thanks to you, for this young person at least.

 

[Dean]  
You two must have had a blast having that heart to heart, thank god I was saved the embarrassment

But then your octopus tentacles got to me even from that far

Only you Sammy

 

[Sam]  
I've been thinking about all the people we've helped and then never see again. I usually don't dwell on them but I guess this got me thinking. Remember that kid, Logan or something, when he started talking again you taught him to say "Zeppelin rules." I hope he's doing all right.

Lucas.

 

[Dean]  
Me too. His mom was hot

Man, we know a lot of kids!

 

[Sam]  
Yeah we do. A lot of hot single moms too, that's kind of weird.

 

[Dean]  
More like sad considering how neither of us hooks up with any of them

 

[Sam]  
I liked Lucas's mom, she put you in your place being snarky about your pickup lines.

 

[Dean]  
There was a MILF hot for you right there in that creepy doll place, you shoulda gone for it

I don't remember anything like that happening

And my pickup lines should be in print

 

[Sam]  
I'm kind of surprised you haven't shacked up with any of them by now. I mean, they know about the ghosts and demons thing so you wouldn't have to lie, you saved their kid so you're automatically a hero. Seems kind of perfect for you, you know?

 

[Dean]  
Yeah...if I had a death wish!

 

[Sam]  
But instead you chase down monsters, because you in no way have a death wish.

 

[Dean]  
That's different

 

[Sam]  
Yeah, I know.

 

[Dean]  
I mean come on, Sam. The ladies are all over me as it is, can you imagine what it'd be like if they were the ones we're talking about? There'd be no shaking them off. And I don't wanna sleep with them anyway. It'd be like taking advantage, just doesn't seem right

 

[Sam]  
Sometimes I feel like I'm about Michael's age, just want to put my fist through a wall and yell about how everything is so unfair.

 

[Dean]  
And how come we're talking just about me here as the big hero? What's your excuse?

Alright, where did that come from, emo kid?

 

[Sam]  
I don't know, forget it. I'm tired.

And you've been firsthand witness to what happens when I let myself like someone, Dean. Don't think it should be any big mystery why I'd want to stay clear of that.

 

[Dean]  
First of all we're not talking ordering wedding bands, just some good sweaty times, fun for everyone. Can't live like a monk all your life Sam

And will you cut the superstitious crap? You're not cursed or anything

 

[Sam]  
What's not fair is how neither of us even got a chance to find out what else we might want to do with our lives. What's not fair is that I can't keep asking you to leave hunting with me when I'm sitting here and down the hall a little boy is alive and his brother is happy because of us. But you can't ask me to be happy about the fact that my brother is probably going to die way sooner than he should. It's a stupid vicious cycle and it's so damn unfair that killing the thing that started all of this didn't make a bit of difference.

 

[Dean]  
Of course it made a difference, come on Sam. You're not thinking straight

It was for Mom.

 

[Sam]  
I know that, Dean, and it's good that we did it, I'm so glad we did. But it didn't make any difference for me, how I feel, and I guess that makes me just as fucked up as I always knew I was. And for you, man, I don't even know what's going on with you.

 

[Dean]  
And I've got no plans of dying and besides, who says when someone should die. People die every day, Sam. Young, old, kids even. Can't do much about it and you should stop beating your head against that wall

 

[Sam]  
Yeah. I'm going to go to bed.

 

[Dean]  
You're not fucked up, well maybe a little, cuz who even thinks that much?

You should

And stay there for a week. I mean it

 

[Sam]  
It's strange having that other bed in the room. I keep feeling like you're going to stumble in here eventually.

 

[Dean, around midnight]  
It'll go away

 

[Sam, almost immediately]  
I hope it doesn't.

 

[Dean]  
Why'd you leave then?

 

[Sam]  
Why didn't you come with me?

 

[Dean]  
Can't think of a reason right now

 

[Sam, after a minute]  
Needing to get away and clear my head while I feel like I'm going crazy doesn't change the fact I want to figure out some way we can make stuff with us work for the long haul. Do you get that?

 

[Dean, after a few minutes]  
You would have made a good lawyer, Sammy

 

[Sam]  
I know.

 

[Dean]  
In human words please

Had some tequila

 

[Sam]  
I don’t like it when we split up.

Of course you did.

 

[Dean]  
You tryin to confuse me? Cuz I'm pretty sure I already asked why you left then

Yeah alright grandma

 

[Sam]  
Let's talk when you're sober.

 

[Dean]  
I’m sober

I’m not drunk

You should take advantage cuz no way we'll talk when I'm sober

 

[Sam]  
Yeah? Well then tell me what's so confusing about me saying I needed some time to clear my head but that doesn't change how I want things to go in the long run? In “human words”, how I want us to stick together?

Go to sleep, Dean.

 

[Dean]  
Screw you Sam, take your condesension and shove it up your ass

 

[Sam]  
Nice, Dean. You're really making me regret taking off.

 

[Dean]  
How can you talk about the long run huh? What makes you so sure you know? That's why it's called the LONG run Sam

 

[Sam]  
Not everyone's allergic to commitment, you know.

 

[Dean]  
Oh fuck you and your snark, like you were ever going to regret it anyway

 

[Sam]  
I can't talk to you right now. You get me so fucking wound up, Dean, I don't know how you do it.

 

[Dean]  
Must be genetic

 

[Sam]  
You act like you know me so well, you know what I want and what's best for me, and you're so freaking blind, you have no idea. You don't know, Dean, so stop acting like you do.

 

[Dean]  
Tell me then alright, tell me!

 

[Sam]  
I've been telling you you moron! You never hear me!

 

[Dean]  
God you're messing with my head so bad

 

[Sam]  
I'm going back to bed. I'll talk to you later. We keep going I'm just going to end up saying more stupid shit.

 

[Dean]  
I'm not blind, you are the one who's blind and you don't even know it, Mr Know it all

Just so you know, Sam - I'm not drunk. Yeah, really

\--

[Sam, next morning around 6 AM]  
Tell me, Dean. What do you want? What would make you happy? What do you want from me?

 

[Dean, after ten minutes]  
Did you even get any sleep?

 

[Sam]  
No. Did you?

 

[Dean]  
Yeah

No

 

[Sam]  
Great so you're well rested and chipper and ready to answer my question, right?

 

[Dean]  
Not real sleep, my mouth tastes like rats

 

[Sam]  
Gross, dude.

Not gonna ask how you know what rats taste like.

 

[Dean]  
It’s a figure of speech Sammy

  
Go to sleep

 

[Sam]  
Maybe I will. Think about what I asked, okay?

 

[Dean]  
Why do you ask?

Will you leave it alone?

 

[Sam]  
Because I need to know, and apparently I'm too blind to figure it out for myself.

 

[Dean]  
Just leave it alone ok?

 

[Sam]  
Please, Dean.

 

[Dean]  
What does it matter? You don't owe me anything. I want you to be happy. You ask me what I want from you, that's what I want

 

[Sam]  
What does what matter? What does it matter what you want, is that what you mean? It matters, Dean. I want you to be happy.

 

[Dean]  
Yeah that's what I meant. And I want YOU to be happy. We could do this all day Sam

Sammy, just quit asking alright? Just, get some sleep, I need to catch some shuteye too

 

[Sam]  
Yeah, I see your point. But still, there's got to be something you want for yourself, right?

I’m going out, can't stay in this room any more. I'm going to find some breakfast then I'm going to start hauling some stuff for Joanna. I'll leave you alone, get some rest.

 

[Dean, three hours later.]  
Done with the hauling?

 

[Sam]  
Yeah. And Michael just tried to convince me to buy him a beer.

 

[Dean]  
I hate to say it but I kinda like that kid

Let me guess - you didn't buy him a beer

 

[Sam]  
No, Dean, I did not buy the 15-year-old a beer. I'm not you.

 

[Dean]  
Oh OUCH

That was sarcasm. I don't say ouch. Ever.

 

[Sam]  
I know, right? Fate worse than death.

I have a couple very specific memories that say you do. On occasion. In a very manly way.

 

[Dean]  
Don't know what you're talking about elephant man

That was a good one, right? Did you get it?

 

[Sam]  
Yeah, I got it.

It's because I'm big, strong, and tough, right?

 

[Dean]  
It's because elephants have long memorys

Memories. Can't even see the scree straight

 

[Sam]  
Nah it's cause next to you I look like an elephant.

Didn't catch any sleep yet huh?

 

[Dean]  
No, I didn’t

 

[Sam]  
Did you even try?

 

[Dean]  
Yeah. Didn’t work out so well

You saying I’m a dwarf?

 

[Sam]  
You saying you’re not?

How much tequila counts as “trying”?

 

[Dean]  
If you were here right now this dwarf would kick your giant ass

 

[Sam]  
You and what dwarf army?

 

[Dean]  
No more tequila since last night and even then it wasn't that much, I told you I wasn't drunk

I’m a one man show

I guess I really am now

 

[Sam]  
That why you can’t sleep?

 

[Dean]  
I don't know. You infected me with your thinking sickness. It's airborne

 

[Sam]  
After 24 years I'm finally rubbing off on you.

Any grand epiphanies you want to share with the class?

 

[Dean]  
Take a wild guess, professor

 

[Sam]  
Any epiphanies you DON'T want to share?

 

[Dean]  
That feels like a trick question

I'mma quit playing while I'm still ahead

 

[Sam]  
It’s not supposed to be

[Тen minutes later]  
I came all the way out here to try and clear my head and I feel like all I've done is fog myself up worse and drag you along with me.

 

[Dean]  
You didn't drag me along. I'm doing a pretty fine job myself

How’d you fog yourself up?

Hey Sam?

 

[Sam]  
Yeah?

 

[Dean]  
Tell me again why you’re doing this

 

[Sam]  
Doing what? Why I left?

 

[Dean]  
Yeah. I'm sitting here and my head's killing me like, there will be the actual word HEAD in the cause of death line on my death certificate and I'm thinking I don't get this. Any of it

 

[Sam]  
I don't know, Dean. I think I had a point to all this but I lost it in that fog I was talking about.

I feel so lost, Dean.

I’m sorry about your head.

 

[Dean, after five minutes]  
What do you want, Sammy?

[Another two minutes later.]  
You just gotta do what feels right. Don't look back, don't think about anything else or anyone else

 

[Sam]  
The farther I am from you, the less right anything feels.

 

[Dean]  
Jesus Sam

[Five minutes later]  
What am I supposed to say to that?

 

[Sam]  
I’m sorry.

 

[Dean]  
Don't be, I'm not trying, fuck it's hard saying things like that in text

Don't call me alright! I can't talk to you right now, do you understand me

 

[Sam]  
I don't know what you’re supposed to say. That I'm fucked up? That I need to grow up? That you're getting in the car and will be here in five hours?

I don't fucking know, Dean.

 

[Dean]  
Do you want me to get in the car and be there in five hours?

 

[Sam]  
I don’t know.

Dean, when I was leaving. What was that?

 

[Dean]  
You tell me.

What was what?

 

[Sam, a few minutes later]  
Nothing, forget it.

No, you know what, don't forget it. You know what I'm talking about, I know I'm not crazy.

Well, maybe I'm crazy for trying to get you to talk about it.

 

[Dean]  
I wasn't saying you were crazy

 

[Sam]  
There might be a lot of reasons I'm crazy.

 

[Dean]  
How can I talk about something if I'm not sure it's the same thing we're talking about?

 

[Sam]  
Right before I left.

 

[Dean]  
You're not crazy Sam. You're one of the sanest people I know actually. Save that text cuz you won’t hear me saying it again

Yeah, I got it already

 

[Sam]  
What does that mean, the sanest?

 

[Dean]  
What it says on the tin

[After a few minutes]  
Do you want me to forget about it?

 

[Sam]  
No, I don't want you to forget about it.

Wait, do you?

 

[Dean]  
Well I can't even if I wanted to

 

[Sam]  
But you don't want to?

God, Dean, I hope we're talking about the same thing.

 

[Dean]  
Seeing how we're not naming it, it's a pretty safe bet we are

 

[Sam]  
Ha. Yeah, fair enough.

 

[Dean]  
I don't know what it means Sam. I'm losing my mind here

 

[Sam]  
I wish I had the answer, Dean, but I don't.

All I know for sure is what I already said. I hate it when we split up, nothing feels right.

 

[Dean]  
Do you see us getting back together now like we used to? Because I gotta be honest man I just don't know how that would work

 

[Sam]  
I don't know. I think that's why I took off, I don't know how anything is supposed to work anymore.

 

[Dean]  
Maybe we should just call it a day

 

[Sam]  
I've spent so long apologizing for what I am, who I am, I don't know man, I don't know if I have it in me anymore, I can't keep apologizing for what I want.

Is that what you want?

 

[Dean]  
What do you want?

 

[Sam]  
Dean, you keep asking and I'm going to end up saying something even you won't be able to pretend you didn't hear.

 

[Dean]  
What the hell, dude? You see me pretending about anything right now??

Whatever it is that you want, you know that if it's up to me I’ll give it to you. I’m sick of pretending that’s not how it is

I’m sick of pretending period

 

[Sam]  
That's the thing. Pretty much all I want is you.

Dean, I know how far you'd go to give me what I want. That's exactly what scares the crap out of me!

 

[Dean]  
You mean that? You sure? You're absolutely sure?

About the first thing, not about that crap about you being my puppet master

 

[Sam]  
I'm sure. I'm goddamn terrified but I'm sure.

And that wasn’t what I was saying.

 

[Dean, after five minutes.]  
Alright then. Let's give it a shot

 

[Sam]  
Yeah? You want this?

 

[Dean]  
Yeah, I do

 

[Sam]  
Yeah?

Holy crap, are you serious?

 

[Dean]  
No, I'm joking cuz that’s the exact same thing as painting your nails while you're passed out!

I’m serious

 

[Sam]  
So what was the other night, you all of a sudden realized you wanted to kiss me and then stopped yourself cause you're an idiot and I left cause I'm an even bigger idiot?

You've come up with lamer pranks.

 

[Dean]  
Something like that, yeah. And you're definitely a bigger idiot

 

[Sam]  
I know, I'm elephant man.

 

[Dean]  
It wasn't suddenly. It wasn't there but it wasn't suddenly either

 

[Sam]  
Holy shit, what are we doing?

 

[Dean]  
If you freak out on me now I'm gonna drive over there just so I can kick your stupid elephant ass

 

[Sam]  
I'm freaking out a little.

Dean, I want to kiss you.

 

[Dean]  
Your ass isn't actually elephant, it's pretty fine

We can do that too

 

[Sam]  
It is? Does that mean you've looked?

Fuck, I am freaking out for real now.

 

[Dean]  
Sam, come on. Don’t do this, Sammy

 

[Sam]  
I’m not, I’m not doing it, I swear, I’m not backing out, Dean. It’s just nuts. But I want it, okay?

I want you.

 

[Dean]  
Wanna kiss you too

 

[Sam]  
Oh god

God, I want you.

 

[Dean]  
I'm hearing an invitation in there

 

[Sam]  
You mean something along the lines of "get your fine ass over here"?

 

[Dean]  
That'll do

 

[Sam]  
How are you not freaking out right now?

 

[Dean]  
Sam, I need to say something and I'm going to say it once here because when I get there we are not talking about this! Are we clear?

 

[Sam]  
Crystal. What is it?

 

[Dean]  
Maybe this is nuts, maybe it'll all go to hell. Hell maybe we will. But this thing we’re doing right now with you all the way over there and me here? I can’t do that, man. Maybe I could before, but now I know you want this too I can't. Sammy if I'm not gonna see my brother I want it to be because of this. Because I tried and fucked up. Not because you ran and I ran. You got me?

 

[Sam]  
I don't want to run anymore, Dean.

 

[Dean]  
Well good because I'm about to drive my ass across the country and if you weren't there that would be awkward

 

[Sam]  
Whatever barrel of crazy we're staring down right now, I want to face it standing right next to you. If we're going to hell we'll go together, you know?

 

[Dean]  
Just sit tight, ok? We'll figure this out, don't pack your bags for hell just yet

 

[Sam]  
I’m right here.

Hey, just so I know what to expect, are we going to be doing the figuring before or after the kissing?

 

[Dean]  
How about we go to Mexico?

Looks like you really got kissing on your mind, baby boy

 

[Sam]  
Why, what’s on your mind? Chupacabras?

 

[Dean]  
Just the one kill, I saw something in the paper.

Then I wanna go to the beach and eat fajitas and watch Mexican soap operas, we can make up their lines in English

 

[Sam]  
Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.

God, that sounds good.

But I didn’t hear you mention anything about the kissing.

 

[Dean]  
Alright, I'm packed up

I’m a man of action, Sammy. That’s a promise.

 

[Sam]  
Awesome.

I’ll hold you to that.

We should probably check into a different motel, Michael's going to want to talk to you as soon as he sees your car.

 

[Dean]  
Yeah. We can go back there later.

I’m thinking, maybe their walls are thin so yeah, check out now and let me know where you’re staying

 

[Sam]  
Just get over here and let me see you.

 

[Dean]  
On my way

**Author's Note:**

> Back in January 2014, two fangirls, still relative strangers, risked embarking on a joint writing project. A monster of a Wincest fic lovingly referred to as The College AU was born as a result of an active, year-long partnership. (Official title ['Catch Me in a Dark Room (with a Storm Outside)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2816813/chapters/6319166)\- be warned, it _is_ a monster, it's 130K without the special features!) A couple of years later, the two are great friends, proficient in Jedi texting, role playing Sam and Dean, and making each other smile every single day. It's not up to us to say whether we are proficient as writing partners as well. But judging by how we wrote this piece, at the very least we work together in an intense, mutually beneficial, soul uplifting way.
> 
> Hooray for International Fanworks Day and all makers and fans out there!


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